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A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life

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Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life

#51

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

999900000999 wrote: post #6

Seems like a horrible invasion of privacy for very little benefit. The logs are stored on an SSD , which is literally the only part you need to replace when donating or reselling a PC. Any enterprise company should have a policy ensuring SSD destruction. Most laptops will last a long time assuming they aren't abused. I guess the SSD wears out, but that's a 50$ part.

> Any enterprise company should have a policy ensuring SSD destruction.

Counterpoint: enterprises shouldn't be incentivized to produce physical waste containing toxic components that are virtually only available from supply chains that abuse human rights and cause mass ecological devastation.

this idea that we should just shred perfectly working components because an asshole in a suit doesn't understand FDE (or just... wiping the drive) is bad for everybody in the log run.

Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life

#52

Post by wildzzz »

mrweasel wrote: post #7

For people outside the US (maybe?), CarFax has no meaning, so the analogy is a bit confusing. The whole thing make no sense. They plan to store the report on the SSD (but not just any SSD, an HP SSD), so that the telemetry is retained between operating system install. I'll give them points for doing on device data collection, but what if I replace the SSD? Maybe they don't plan on making that user replaceable, but th…

This is likely just something that corporate users would care about. Companies often lease PCs from IT service providers rather than own and maintain their own hardware. The owner of the hardware now has a metric they can point to for how "usable" a machine is after the initial lease. As a customer, I may not want to rent laptops that have been through who knows what sort of wear and tear no matter how cheap but if the owner can now show me actual data saying how used the laptop is, I may feel more comfortable paying less for used. It's like the odometer on a car, I'd never buy a used car that didn't have an odometer (even if such a thing existed). But with an odometer, I can get a general idea of how much use a car has had despite the age. Only a year old with 30k miles? Hell no. Three years old with only 10k? That car might as well be new.

I'm assuming since it writes to a vendor-reserved sector, replacing it would make the whole thing moot. The rental company wants to retain that data because it makes a used PC more valuable. Since the corporate renter doesn't own the PC, they would only be allowed to wipe the SSD (excluding this section), not remove and destroy it.

Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life

#54

Post by buccal »

wildzzz wrote: post #52
mrweasel wrote: post #7

For people outside the US (maybe?), CarFax has no meaning, so the analogy is a bit confusing. The whole thing make no sense. They plan to store the report on the SSD (but not just any SSD, an HP SSD), so that the telemetry is retained between operating system install. I'll give them points for doing on device data collection, but what if I replace the SSD? Maybe they don't plan on making that user replaceable, but th…

This is likely just something that corporate users would care about. Companies often lease PCs from IT service providers rather than own and maintain their own hardware. The owner of the hardware now has a metric they can point to for how "usable" a machine is after the initial lease. As a customer, I may not want to rent laptops that have been through who knows what sort of wear and tear no matter how cheap but if t…

"Odometer" for HDDs and SSDs are already provided in SMART data that is more or less standatized and accessible using many tools. The data is not resettable by mortals similarly to car odometers.

Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life

#55

Post by 999900000999 »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #51
999900000999 wrote: post #6

Seems like a horrible invasion of privacy for very little benefit. The logs are stored on an SSD , which is literally the only part you need to replace when donating or reselling a PC. Any enterprise company should have a policy ensuring SSD destruction. Most laptops will last a long time assuming they aren't abused. I guess the SSD wears out, but that's a 50$ part.

> Any enterprise company should have a policy ensuring SSD destruction. Counterpoint: enterprises shouldn't be incentivized to produce physical waste containing toxic components that are virtually only available from supply chains that abuse human rights and cause mass ecological devastation. this idea that we should just shred perfectly working components because an asshole in a suit doesn't understand FDE (or just.…

Ok.

The alternative is corporations just trash the entire laptop. With the rise of soldered ssds( Apple for one) this is possible.

Maybe argue for better recycling ?

It only takes one half awake IT guy to forget to wipe a few drives to spook companies.

In my world if MegaCorp offloads used laptops to a non profit, and the non profit just has to throw in a cheap SSD, that's a win.

Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life

#57

Post by 999900000999 »

rwyinuse wrote: post #49
999900000999 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just easier. You don't have to worry about IT forgetting to wipe a drive or something. You have a policy that says we take the SSD out before sending it to the reseller/donating. A used SSD is a bad idea anyway, everything else on a laptop can more or less work indefinitely

From reliability perspective an used SSD is not a bad idea. Average SSD that has seen typical business / home use will become obsolete long before it reaches its TBW rating, and many drives last way beyond that. Keyboard, screen or even the motherboard are more likely to give up before the SSD.

At least in my experience SSDs are literally the only part that tends to fail.

Using a used SSD( Refurbished assuming direct from manufacturer might be ok) feels like digging though someone else's stuff.

Maybe they cleaned it, maybe they left business docs or other sensitive data. The risk to reward is too great.

Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life

#58

Post by cush »

Just imagine for a moment what this would look like in reality...

"I was going to take your original offer of $220 for this here used HP laptop, but after looking at the high number of writes to the SSD on PCFax, I can't do better than $180."

What a bizarre initiative. CarFax was started in the 80's to combat odometer fraud. Cars need CarFax because they're expensive and have thousands of moving parts

Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life

#59

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

999900000999 wrote: post #55
GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any enterprise company should have a policy ensuring SSD destruction. Counterpoint: enterprises shouldn't be incentivized to produce physical waste containing toxic components that are virtually only available from supply chains that abuse human rights and cause mass ecological devastation. this idea that we should just shred perfectly working components because an asshole in a suit doesn't understand FDE (or just.…

Ok. The alternative is corporations just trash the entire laptop. With the rise of soldered ssds( Apple for one) this is possible. Maybe argue for better recycling ? It only takes one half awake IT guy to forget to wipe a few drives to spook companies. In my world if MegaCorp offloads used laptops to a non profit, and the non profit just has to throw in a cheap SSD, that's a win.

that's one alternative. another is: the corporation is regulated against unnecessary waste, and they do their due diligence to ensure the drive is wiped before resale/donation.

trade secrets must take a backseat to human rights and toxic pollution from mines.

Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life

#60

Post by stonogo »

tedunangst wrote: post #41
alexpotato wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of an old story about Hertz and Ford Mustangs. Goes something like this: - Ford makes the original Mustang (which everyone loves) - Ford makes different versions of the Mustang (some more powerful than others e.g. the Shelby) - Hertz had a special custom Shelby model made for them - You could rent that special model from Hertz - So, people would buy a lower end Mustang, rent the higher end Mustang fro…

"People" could really use a number attached to it.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/legends-of-...
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